Poetry | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

Haiku-a-day #5

Posted in Poetry, tagged #haikuforhealing, haiku-a-day, PicMonkey on December 5, 2016| 3 Comments »

DigiLitSunday: Gratitude

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Gratitude, Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged #haikuforhealing, haiku-a-day, Janet Wong, Mary Lee Hahn, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Poetry Friday Anthologies, Sylvia Vardell on December 4, 2016| 9 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Gratitude takes many forms. Gratitude for my online community means writing a haiku-a-day in December. Mary Lee posted the challenge, and Michelle is curating all the bloggers participating. We are all using #haikuforhealing.

I also feel gratitude for poetry and for authors who promote poetry in the classroom.

Poetry has the power to transform a classroom environment. On Friday I went off the lesson plan path and shared a new book that I received at NCTE16 from Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong, the partnership behind Poetry Friday anthologies. Just You Wait is their latest anthology. I love the new way this one is designed with a poem from an outside poet, a response poem from Janet, and a poem writing activity from Sylvia. The subtitle reads “A Poetry Friday Power Book”, and it certainly packed a good punch in my classroom.

After showing my students a picture of Margarita Engle (by looking at her picture, we knew she was of a different race, but which one?), I read her poem “Who am I?”. This poem speaks of the half Cuban she is and how there is no bubble on the form for being half. I have bi-racial students, so we talked honestly about what this means.

We also discussed the mentor text poem and how the end is like a punch line that makes you think. So my students and I wrote together using the form “Today I am someone who…” I could not have predicted the impact this exercise would have on my students. They wrote from their hearts. So much so that some do not want to share with the public, but they did feel safe enough to share with me and their classmates. We were all moved. And through connections and writing, we became closer, a stronger community of writers.

Some posted their poems on our kidblog site for the public. You can read them here. I emailed Sylvia and Janet, and they both graciously left comments. I can’t wait to share these on Monday. #Gratitude for digital spaces that allow this immediate and authentic feedback.

Erin handed me her poem and asked that I publish it on my blog. She is bi-racial. Her mother is from the Philippines. She is determined to fight the stereotypes.

Poetry Friday: Stereotypes

by Erin

Today
I am
not just another stereotypical Asian
I’m someone who doesn’t want to be a doctor
I’m someone who isn’t just a goody-two-shoes
I’m not someone who thinks studying is more important than friends
I’m someone who doesn’t always make good grades
I’m someone who will never be just another Asian
I’m someone who will crush these stereotypes and others like it

I write alongside my students. When I wrote this last line, little did I know how true it was. My students find poems and express their hearts.

Today
I am
someone who welcomes toe tickles from my dog, Charlie
someone who froths milk for coffee every day
someone who looks at nature for inspiration
someone who finds poems hiding in her junk drawer
someone who finds poems in the hearts of children

— Margaret Simon

Please join the conversation today with your link.

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Haiku-a-Day #3/ Celebration

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Poetry, tagged #commonplacemarvels, #haikuforhealing, field trips, Jim Foret, Mr. Al oak tree, nature, preservation on December 3, 2016| 6 Comments »

Reds, golden autumn
pushes its way to winter
with silent leaf fall

–Margaret Simon

More about the haiku-a-day project here.

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

This week I grabbed the opportunity to take my students outside. We met Mr. Jim Foret, a naturalist and professor from ULL, at Mr. Al, a 150+ year old oak in our community.

Mr. Jim has known Mr. Al for awhile. He was instrumental in saving this amazing oak from being destroyed. Once the blue-haired ladies from Garden Clubs along with the Optimist Club and many school children got involved, the legislatures listened and ordered LADOTD (Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development) to move this old oak from its original home to its specialized, protected home now. Jim explained that the time was terrible to move the tree, but the progress on the service road was halted, so he had to be moved in mid-summer of 2011, a summer of no rain.

Jim figured out just the right amount of water to give Mr. Al. For years, he paced and worried about Mr. Al’s survival and questioned his own resolve to save him. And the sprawling, amazing oak made it, and has withstood the test of time. “He will probably outlive all of you,” Jim explained to the children and parents.

Mr. Al is a community icon. Boy Scouts have mulched him. ULL students have planted prairie grasses. And many others pass by and wave. If you are traveling down Highway 90 away from New Iberia toward New Orleans, take a minute to say hello. Loving care has saved this old grandfather oak, and loving care will sustain him.

I celebrate the history of the land.

I celebrate the gift of an oak and his master.

I celebrate exposing my students to nature.

Sketching a memory of Mr. Al.

Marveling in the shade of mighty Mr. Al.

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Haiku-a-Day 2

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged #haikuforhealing, December, haiku-a-day on December 2, 2016| 9 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Bridget at Wee Words for Wee Ones

surprised by red
a glow of Christmas paper
wrapped in a flower

–Margaret Simon

Joining Mary Lee Hahn’s #haikuforhealing. Read about the project here.

Images help me process and write. This flower was a complete surprise. I bought this plant months ago for my deck when we were having guests for the wedding. I am not a plant person. And I usually kill them. But this one has thrived despite my brown thumb, and today, has gifted me with this bright red blossom. Nature heals.

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Haiku-a-Day December

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged #haikuforhealing, December, haiku-a-day, Mary Lee Hahn on December 1, 2016| 9 Comments »

light the lanterns
darkness is trying to win
solstice seeks solace

–Margaret Simon

Mary Lee Hahn calls us poet/bloggers to write a haiku-a-day in December. #haikuforhealing

For my first haiku, I stole Mary Lee’s last line. Would someone like to steal my last line and make a new haiku?

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Mowing in November

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged New Orleans, Poets & Writers on November 25, 2016| 20 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Carol at Carol’s Corner.

In my Inbox, I found this prompt from Poets and Writers:

In his 1821 essay “A Defence of Poetry,” Percy Bysshe Shelley writes, “Poetry is…the perfect and consummate surface and bloom of all things; it is as the odor and the color of the rose to the texture of the elements which compose it….” Make a list of words and phrases that describe the surface textures, odors, and colors that surround you as this year draws to an end, choosing the details that are most evocative of the season. You may find yourself drawing inspiration from the contrasting primary colors of holiday cheer, bright puffy parkas or dark wool coats, the shiny prints and textures of patterned gift wrap, the stark tones of snow, or the scents of fragrant conifers and baked desserts. Write a trio of poems, each focusing on one type of sensory input. Select an element–setting, narrator’s voice, repeated words, or a specific object–that stays constant through all three, tying them together.

I was relaxing at my daughter’s house in New Orleans after a long, amazing, yet tiring weekend at NCTE. The mowers came to mow the median. And this poem emerged.

I.

Even in November
mowers hum,
chopping remains of green,
throwing dust to the wind.

My soul prepares
for the cold,
curled up in a blanket,
wearing wool socks.

This cooling of air
this crisping of leaves, grass, my toes
gives space for new growth
prepares for seeds to flower.

II

When I hear
mower sounds,
wind playing its violin,

I turn my ear–
Listen.

III

I see black faces
of the mowers earnestly
getting the job done.
Do they take pride
in their mowing?

Do they take their families
for a ride later,
drive by the median
on Carrollton Avenue,
point to the grass,
and say, “I did that!” ?

Do any of us
see the lawn of our lives
as beauty
we have created?

–Margaret Simon

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Learning to Play with Words with Jane Yolen

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged Jane Yolen, poetry on November 15, 2016| 10 Comments »

Note: Header image art by my sister, Beth Gibson Saxena.

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

Jane Yolen

Poets love words. Poets play with words. Poets want you to love language as much as they do.

In my classroom, we read poems together, searching for sounds, images, and meaning. Jane Yolen is a master. I’ve admired her poetry for years. But only a year ago, maybe less, I signed up for her daily poem email. She believes in writing a poem a day. She practices what she preaches and sends out her daily drafts trusting that we receivers will honor and respect her words.

I shared one of these gems with my students, “Seven Ways of Kneeling on the Ground.” My first intent in sharing this poem was to show students how to use a pattern of 7 stanzas with 3 lines each, but in further examination, the poem offered so much more. We found imagery bouncing off the page. Her poem exemplified the magical sounds of words without using end rhyme: “Kneeling in the high bracken/ the brown crackle of it.”

There is JOY in reading a poem together, marking it up in colorful markers, and discovering how language (the sounds of words, double meanings, metaphor) leads us to a deeper understanding of our world.

jane-yolen-quote

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Goodbye to Hummers and Hurricanes!

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged David Lee, full moon alert, hummingbirds, hurricanes, Jim Foret, Mary Oliver on October 15, 2016| 3 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with sweet Irene from Birmingham.

I was letting this Poetry Friday go, but this morning (Saturday) I received the Full Moon Alert from my friend Jim. Jim has missed two FMAs. When I saw him out dancing at La Poussiere a few weekends ago, I felt I conjured him out of the dust. (La Poussiere means “the dust” in Cajun French.) Turns out, Jim and his wife Paula are fine, just busy. That’s my excuse, too. Well, isn’t it everyone’s?

The thing I love about Jim, in addition to his attention to nature and moons, is his love of poetry. I am reposting the two poems he sent. The first is from David Lee. I have taken in the hummingbird feeder, but I still have such a fond image of them at the feeder this summer.

Hummingbird at the feeder in my backyard. Taken August 30th. Photo by Margaret Simon

Ode Beneath a Hummingbird Feeder

1

Greenflash of lightning
and memory of a red scar
etched on the golden throat
of a still afternoon.

2

Whirr of tiny wings
like a small thunder
across the redwood porch.

3

Oh, arrogant little warrior,
if I had a naked weapon
I could brandish like yours,
I, too, would suffer
no foolish rival suitors
sipping at my ruby fount.

–David Lee

The second poem Jim sent was by Mary Oliver. The sentiment she expresses of hurricanes and the resurrection after is familiar to me. I send this out to my Poetry Friday friends who recently endured Hurricane Matthew.

HURRICANE

It didn’t behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the Earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
Everything. But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
But they couldn’t stop. They
Looked like telephone poles and didn’t
care. And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
There are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.

–Mary Oliver

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Fairy Tale Poems

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged fairy tales, Jane Yolen, Marilyn Singer, Reverso poem on October 7, 2016| 22 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Violet.

This week my students and I have been reading and writing about fairy tales. They enjoyed hearing Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen. We also read aloud reverso poems by master Marilyn Singer in Mirror, Mirror.

“Writing a reverso is stressing me out. How did she write a whole book of them?” said Emily as we worked together to write a reverso for Sleeping Ugly. Yes, it was tough. But we were happy with our results. (Formatting has been another challenge.)

Sleeping Ugly

Plain Jane

On the outside,
beauty sleeps
lying still
finds
the Prince
wandering through the woods.
He knows
beauty
lies within.

Miserella

Lies within.
Beauty
he knows
wandering through the woods,
the Prince.
Lying still,
beauty sleeps
on the outside.

Andrew worked on his own and created this reverso about Pirates

Don’ Steal me Booty

Here’s the truth Forever I have it

I have the treasure I shall battle

An ordinary treasure Or I have to let it go

Give it up never

never Give it up

I have to let it go An ordinary treasure

I shall battle I have the treasure

Or forever you have it Here’s the truth

Kaiden enjoys word play in his poem about “Fairy Fales (not a mistake)”

Magical stories, forever to be told.
Fairies,princes,and eggs made of gold
Talking toads, yellow brick roads,
stories happy and Grimm
Evil queens, horrible dreams
Long sleep, what a treat
In a palace, standing bold
Slaying trolls
Magical stories, forever to be told.

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I Spy a Septercet

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Jane Yolen, science poems, septercet on September 20, 2016| 12 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

If you follow my blog, you know I am a little obsessed with poetry. In the world of words, syllables, and sounds, I find puzzles in making them all fit together into something meaningful. Jane Yolen was recently featured on Michelle Barnes’ Today’s Little Ditty with a challenge to write septercets. This is a form Jane Yolen created with the pattern of seven syllables in three line stanzas.

I challenged my students to write septercets. And I played along.

I Spy

Looking for spinning spiders
hiding between limbs of trees
miraculous thread designs

Studying patterns of light
refraction reflecting bows
miraculous sky designs

Skipping stones from uncle’s pier
a ripple breaks the surface
miraculous water designs

–Margaret Simon

Can you write a septercet about the harvest moon above? Share in the comments and on Ditty of the Month padlet.

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